After Renaissance man Pete Muller conquered Wall Street by revolutionizing the way it works through applied mathematics, he hit the New York City Subway to return to his passion for music. He played his piano and sang, testing out his original compositions for passersby, and joined a weekly songwriters' circle. He even spent time studying at NYU's Tisch School as he honed his craft. After releasing a pair of early albums, he got married, moved to California, returned to the business he'd founded, and became a father, but he never lost that love for music. In 2014, he returned to the studio to record his third album and was introduced to Avatar Studios, which, under its original name of The Power Station, had hosted the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, David Bowie, and Bob Dylan. At the time, the studio was under threat of being sold and redeveloped as condos, so Muller decided to use his resources in partnership with the City of New York and the Berklee College of Music to save, renovate, and re-launch it as a world-class recording and educational facility. As a result, he met Rob Mathes, with whom he worked on multiple other albums there over the years. Around the same time, he founded the non-profit Live Music Society to provide no-strings-attached grants to independent music venues around the country. Muller is now on his sixth album, More Time , which was recorded in Memphis. It shows off his grittier rock and soul side--all while staying true to his open-hearted songwriting. The uber-successful businessman, philanthropist, and talented musician graced the LifeMinute Studios to talk about his music and play some songs off the record released earlier this year. This is a LifeMinute with Pete Muller.
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00:00Hey, it's Pete Muller, and you're watching Life Minute TV.
00:04After an uber-successful career on Wall Street, musician Pete Muller went back to his first
00:09love of music.
00:10Now out with his sixth album, More Time, he stopped by the Life Minute Studios to tell
00:15us all about his amazing journey and play some songs off his new record.
00:20This is a Life Minute with Pete Muller.
00:23I should go, I should go, I should go now.
00:30I should go, I should go, but I don't know how.
00:36I'm putting my sixth record out, it's called More Time, and it's a bit of a departure for
00:42me.
00:43I made the record in Memphis with Matt Ross-Spang, and I went down there originally just to record
00:49a couple songs.
00:50And we really hit it off, so we ended up making a record together.
00:53I've got a whole bunch of great Memphis musicians on it.
00:56Will Sexton on the guitar, Rick Steff on organ, Ken Coomer on drums, and Dave Smith on bass.
01:02Falling back to flatness, at least I can breathe.
01:09Try to understand why I don't leave.
01:12Now it was funny, when we started recording, there was a bit of a logistics snafu, and
01:19the band never actually got the music that I sent them, or the mp3s.
01:23So they had to learn the songs and play them with me that recording day, which made for
01:28kind of a rawer feel that was really, really fun.
01:31And we also recorded without a click, so we couldn't fix things in the normal way.
01:36But I really love what we came up with.
01:38I see, I see you shine.
01:46I see, I see you shine.
01:51Let me talk a little bit about the songs.
01:53There's a song called See You Shine.
01:55You know, for me, it took me a while to figure out my place in the world.
02:00Who are my people?
02:01I have a lot of different interests, and my brain works very, very quickly.
02:05And sometimes when you grow up that way, I guess I'd call myself a nerd in a lot of ways,
02:11it takes you a while to find your people.
02:14And the song See You Shine is written for people in that position.
02:18I have two kids now, I have a 15-year-old son, I've got to say he's a bit of a nerd
02:22too.
02:23And I was thinking of him when I wrote the song.
02:26Best of Her is about a very smart, cynical lady I know with a great heart that keeps
02:34it very well guarded.
02:36But it's also the case that if someone listens to the song, what I'm hoping for is that they
02:41figure out how it connects to their life, and what it means to them.
02:45Sometimes the night sky gets cloudy, and it's really hard to see.
02:53Just trust that voice inside you, it'll show you what might be.
03:01I see, yeah I see you shine.
03:09Music was always something I was passionate about.
03:11I didn't think I'd make a living doing it, and I still haven't made a living doing it.
03:16It's something I do very passionately.
03:18But I realized that learning how to convey emotions more, singing, I just found that
03:25playing a song and having it touch people in the audience was just the best.
03:29And I love doing it and getting better at it.
03:31To hear more of this interview, visit our podcast, Life Minute TV, on iTunes and all
03:57streaming podcast platforms.